Abstract

Attitudes and behaviours around HIV/AIDS are based on 'truths' informed by prevailing cultural myths. Crewe (1992:11) notes that 'Discussion of AIDS is caught up in a 'cultural matrix which frequently defies medical facts but reflects the dominant power, blocs within society."" We shall show that even the 'medical facts"" reflect a cultural myth, for as Saayman (1999:212) has pointed out, 'The HIV/AIDS pandemic is not maintained or contained by biological mechanisms ... but by social behavioural patterns with essential religio-cultural dimensions'.